_______ V.A.N. Observatory
– A Press Freedom Tool_______
European Communication Institute[1] , with the support of the European Parliament[2]
teams up with the Media Governance & Industries Research Lab of
University of Vienna[3],
J.A.J. [4]
, and S.E.E.M.O[5] in an attempt to develop and curate an
Observatory on Violence against, not just Journalists, but on the entire News
Producing Community.
World Press Freedom Day comes
in 2017 as a central theme in Fora, Social Media platforms, conferences,
citizen groups, even political Agendas (see US president Trump’s use of ‘Fake
News ’, challenged Media reliability, and more)
It is common sense to regard
News Quality in the Digital age as determining a) everyday Life quality, and b)
Democracy itself. Therefore all issues affecting the re-invented properties of
a “Newsperson” are of importance.
This is the starting point of
this Initiative.
Experience has it that all
staff, all ranks, skills, all members of the Press Industry, are potential
victims of Violence. VAN is where these incidents are gathered, processed,
compared, forming data for meaningful analysis and future Policy making. Further
it is a User Generated Content meeting point, where those events are
categorized and shared.
Violence is more than Physical
assault. The Project invites recordings of semantic, psychological, hierarchic
and other types of Violence on the VAN timeline. As most incidents fall under
more than one category it aspires that an organized glimpse in this dark aspect
of News Making, will alert societies and change the ways the News profession is
regarded.
VAN’s official Presentation was made at the main
Europarliament hall in Athnes, on May 3rd, 2017, World Press Freedom Day.
ECI aspires that VAN is the first
step, towards developing a Freedom of Press Index which shall assist Academia,
the Press Industry and the Business community to make better informed choices.
Hopefully its findings will also assist
Policy Making be it in a local, regional or European level.
